Hearts that beat and clocks that tick
by X5thAvenueX
Summary: One week to solve a case, one month to break his heart, one year - one girl - to kill a man.


**Hearts that beat and clocks that tick**

**  
**One week to solve a case, one month to break his heart, one year - one girl - to kill a man.

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS.

This does not follow the time line of the show, and a lot of it is not like it was on the show, for example I know they did not meet cause he had to fix her computer, and obviously, the events mentioned do not happen over one year, they happen over many seasons.

* * *

"I'm McGee" he says timidly in January, because they have not met before, at least not in this life time.  
"Hi McGee!" and his name sounds different; better - or maybe worse - when she says it.  
His eyes widen in an effort to take in her appearance, and keep being drawn to what he is sure cannot be a tattoo of a spiderweb, partially hidden by a studded collar.  
She is everything he has never wanted, and the air in the lab is thick.  
She hugs him, because apparently words and handshakes just don't cut it for her, and she smells like gunpowder and it reminds him of fear.  
She shows him around, proudly, pointing out machines and microscopes and plasma screens and art that is really just someones broken body, but he is too polite to point that out.  
When the tour is over, however, he is smiling, and finds he was not feigning interest, but is not interested in the equipment.  
He spends the next few hours flat on his back under her desk, fixing her computer and watching her shoes as she moves around the lab.  
She chats incessantly to him the whole time, and it should probably annoy him, but instead he finds his heart beating along in time with her words.  
Limbs dizzy, head light, speech stuttered, and it is not a pleasant feeling, but one he could get used to.

"Would you like to go for dinner?" he blurts in February, and he has come to her lab with nothing to offer; no evidence, just a question.  
She purses her lips, cocks her head, stares him down whilst she considers, and he counts the clouds that are not quite visible from her window.  
He does not mind waiting, not yet, and he will not think to resent it for such a very long time.  
"Okay" she finally decides, and he is suddenly unsure; of what to do now, of where to take her, of himself.  
He forces a smile, because _he_ asked _her_, after all, and that evening he is picking her up; all sweating palms and nerves rushing round his stomach, 17 again, and she is beautiful.  
If asked, he will describe the night as amazing and perfect and oh so wonderful, and she will describe it as nice, and that is where the problem lies; waiting for them from the start.  
They stumble back to hers and she kicks the door shut without even stopping to turn on the light, and later he will wonder if it was so she didn't have to see him.

"Happy Birthday" he says in March, words soft, floating through the air.  
They drift to the floor to lie next to him at her feet.  
He hands her the black roses, and she beams, even though it is her third bunch so far.  
He has another present; a cross that cost him one months pay and took him one month to choose, but he just cannot, and it burns a hole in his pocket as the elevator doors shut on his cowardice.  
She will find it when she returns from lunch; a neat little package waiting for her by her computer, and she will say nothing, even though the diamonds are real and she knows who it is from.  
He sees her wearing it later on, not so much proudly but teasingly, and when he looks at her now he will be reminded of who they both are.  
The next morning, when he wakes to see she has already left, it is so cliched that he does not care.  
His sheets smell of gunpowder, and he does not hesitate to wash them.

"Hey Abby" he says in April, and if his voice is too loud or his smile too wide then she does not mention it.  
Her name tastes bitter in his mouth, and he is not quite sure why.  
"Because this is wrong" says her voice in his head; at least he thinks only in his head.  
He is not as apologetic as he would like to be. Perhaps he is just getting stronger.  
It has been like this for a while, because there never was a third date after all, and he is now not sure there was ever really a second or a first.  
They have avoided each other mainly, and he likes to think the others have not noticed.  
"Hi" and shy just does not suit her, like her court suits or a stray frown.  
He does not ask "Areweokay" but it sits in his mouth, and he does not know what is in hers. He doubts he ever will.  
He shivers against the bitter wind blowing through the closed window.  
There are many ways to leave a man, and Abby probably knows them all.

"Are you okay?" he asks in May, because Mikel Mawher tried to kill her, and because McGee did not stop him.  
Instead he fretted over his broken typewriter, and sharing toothbrushes, and the true failure comes because she does not really mind anyway.  
He can date who he wants, as can she, and she does, and he has not realised until now that she never once cried out his name.  
She told him - with a flirtatious smirk - that he dated girls who used lady bug toothbrushes and who wore JLo Glow, and he had wanted to scream, because she was there, in his apartment, looking tempting and promising and oh so amazing dressed in only his t shirt, and he wanted her.  
He wanted her, with the pigtails, and the science, and the Caff Pow obsession, and the rambling, and just her, just her, just her.  
It was probably her way of telling him that he does not go for girls like her - she does not go for guys like him - but he will ignore it, for now, because it is human nature to prolong the goodbye.  
"I'm fine" and he says nothing, because really, there is nothing to say, and even if there is, it is not his place to say it.  
The cross sits on her neck, an accusation sits on her lips, and the world sits on his shoulders.

"You read it?" he definitely does not _ask_ in June, because everybody has, and she will have been the first.  
He watches peoples legs go past the window, and she is looking through a microscope.  
"Yep" she says, and up until now he though he knew all the different tones to her voice.  
"You got something for me?" she asks, still looking through the damn lens, and the next book will feature "Amy's utter disinterest in Agent McGreggor" because he likes to imitate real life as much as possible.  
She finally looks up and her are eyes are dryer than ever before, and then she sees the evidence box in his hands, and he is no longer there.  
That night he destroys all the copy's of Deep Six he can find; from handwritten notes to published books, and by the end Amy still does not want Agent McGreggor.  
Tommy wants Lisa and Lisa wants Tommy and Abby does not want him, she does not want him. Not like that, and it should be okay but is not, and that in itself is not okay.  
His head - his heart - can barely keep up, and it would be a wake up call, if he had only been asleep to begin with.

"I'm sorry" he says in July, because he failed again without even trying, and could not even open a car door.  
She is sipping a Caff Pow, no doubt bought by Gibbs, and he wishes just once he could be the one to get it for her.  
But it is an unspoken arrangement, and McGee is not good with words.  
"It's okay Timmy" but she probably does not mean it and he hates that he does not hate it when she calls him that.  
She is almost real, and he can see his reflection in her. Blink and it is gone. Blink and she is gone.  
She is beautiful today, she is beautiful everyday, and her hair is in those cute little plaits and her eyes are oh so enticing.  
Bert is laughing at him from the corner of the room, and goddamit, he does not even like the colour black.

"Wow" he says in August, because the weather is so hot that her skirt is barely non existent, her tank top too.  
In the back of his mind he doubts the weather actually had anything to do with her wardrobe choice.  
He is not too scared to blush.  
Bathed in sunlight, she is still not an angel. He traces her tats in his mind, and the pattern is familiar.  
He remembers why he came, now, remembers because the teeth marks on his arm hurt again, and because he is afraid in his home, afraid of the dog, and it is. All. Her. Fucking. Fault.  
He wants to hate her so badly it hurts.  
She steps closer, and in her leather boots she is the same height as him and they are equals; in the universe, in work, but never in _this_.  
He leaves suddenly, leaves her and him and them and the navy yard.  
She probably does not call after him, but if she does he cannot hear over the crunching of golden leaves beneath his shoes.  
There is a picture of them, on his bedroom wall. She is gazing at Jethro, and he is gazing at her. All is how it should be.

"It'll be alright" he says in September, because Gibbs has gone and she hasn't stopped crying since.  
He does not hold her, because he knows he does not smell of sawdust.  
Later Tony will, and it will be neither better nor worse.  
He is not jealous, despite the fact that it is not him that she misses, yet he is long gone too.  
These tears are not for him, they never were and never will be, and it is that which makes him want to vomit.  
She sang the goat song with him, and told him she could never be his wife, and it stung, and he went home and typed and typed and typed, it all, onto his stupid little typewriter - god McGee it's 2008, just use a freaking computer, she told him - and then he shredded it all, because it meant nothing and everything, and he could not keep it. Keep her. She was never his.  
Abby never belonged to anyone, least of all to him.

"Pink?" he says in October; it is Halloween and she has dressed as something very much not her, which he supposes is the point.  
"I'm a fairy" she says, as if it is obvious, but she could have told him she was anything - a ghost, the devil, fucking God - and he would have believed her.  
She eyes his outfit - badly hidden distaste - goes to speak, then is interrupted - thank god - when Tony enters; dressed like the hero he already is in a James Bond tux.  
McGee can't stay to watch once Abby starts fluttering her eye lashes at him, and neither notice him leave.  
He winds up in the bathroom, eyeing himself critically, and wanting to tear the stupid jeans from his stupid legs cause shit, he looks ridiculous.  
They have a case, so he cannot go home to change, and his cheeks burn with shame the whole day.  
Next year, Halloween is cancelled, and he knows she blames him.

"Can we try?" He almost begs in November, and he seems to have crossed the fine line between enthusiasm and desperation.  
He does not tack "please" onto the end, but he may as well have.  
They are outside, and it is raining. It washes them clean and washes them raw, until they are nobody; blank slates and she still does not want him.  
She looks uncomfortable, and he is not sure if he wants to burst into tears or start to laugh.  
"Listen McGee" he knows that tone, and probably does not need to listen. He closes his eyes on impulse, because he definitely does not need to remember her face when she says this.  
And standing in the rain, she tells him no.

"I love you" he all but whispers in December, because there is nothing else left to say.  
He has followed her home, followed her home like a pathetic stalker, and he is suddenly no better than Mikel Mawher.  
Stood on her doorstep, because he is not welcome in her home, her life, and it has come to this. He has come to this.  
He kisses her then, and she tastes of pity and regret and it is far too late for any of those things. He kisses her like there is no tomorrow because there isn't, not for them. She doesn't pull away from his lie.  
"I love you" he repeats, quiet but firm, and nods to himself; he is done.  
He turns before she can shut the door on him, because he still has_ some_ pride left.  
He heads in the opposite direction of her drive, abandoning his car, because goddamit, he only bought it to impress her.  
It started with a broken computer, and ended on a dark white evening, and all the other stuff packed between them really does not mean anything when you think about it, which he does not.  
The world will be born again at the end of this month, and Timothy McGee will be renewed along with it.  
He sees her in every snowflake that hits him, and there are no tears to melt the ice.  
She doesn't watch him walk away, gazing at his retreating form until his no more than a spec of life, and he doesn't look back longingly over his shoulder.  
All is fair.

* * *

Please review! Just something random I thought of, so sorry if it doesn't make much sense to anyone. And I hope I didn't make Abby sound horrible or anything, because I really like her character and I know some of this is really unlike her, and not really like McGee either.


End file.
